On Wednesday he will attend a round table session in Moscow State University on the subject, "Preparing a New Concept of National Security of the Russian Federation (Principal Threats to National Security, National Interests of Russia and Mechanisms of their Implementation").
At a conference with the "siloviki", which was held immediately after a hostage-taking terrorist attack at the theatre centre on Dubrovka in Moscow in October 2002, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave instructions to draft a new wording of the concept of Russia's national security, with due account to be taken of the substantial change of realities following the adoption of the existing concept of 1997 in the wording of the presidential decree of January 10, 2000.
The president designated the Security Council of Russia as the "main drafter". Vladimir Rushailo, the then secretary of the council, commented on the head of state's instruction as follows: "A new wording of the concept of Russia's national security is called upon to reliably ensure the security of the individual, society and the state in the face of a sharp intensification of international terrorism."
He emphasised in that connection that "the system of acting in the area of struggle against terrorism calls for reviewing, with emphasis on preventive measures at the stage when a terrorist act is being conceived or prepared."
Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told journalists at that time that "in drafting (the document) account is also being taken of plans for using the armed forces".
For nearly two years the departments concerned worked on the new wording of the concept of national security. On September 29 of this year, the current secretary of Russia's Security Council, Igor Ivanov, announced that the Security Council was embarking on direct work to renew the concept, and intends to do so in public.
"A renewed concept of national security is demanded by life itself: September 11 in the US and a series of other tragic events suggested the idea of reviewing some provisions of this document," said the secretary of Russia's Security Council. Among them he named above all paragraphs dealing with the struggle against terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and also the issue of information security.
